[img]http://thecontrolleronline.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/halo-combat-evolved-anniversary.jpg[/img]As a first-person shooter, Halo: Combat Evolved has a gameplay fundamentally similar to that of its peers, focusing on combat in a 3D environment, and taking place almost entirely from a character's eye view. The player can move around and look up, down, left or right.[17] The game features vehicles, ranging from armored jeeps and tanks to alien hovercraft and aircraft, many of which can be controlled by the player. The game switches to the third-person perspective during vehicle use for pilots and mounted gun operators; passengers maintain a first-person view.[18]The player character is equipped with a damage-absorbing energy shield, in addition to hit points. The shield's charge appears as a blue bar in the upper-right hand corner of the game's heads-up display. When the shield is fully depleted, the player is highly vulnerable, and further damage is applied directly to the character's health level.[10] Critically, the shield will recharge if no further damage is sustained for a brief period.[19]Halo's arsenal consists of weapons from science fiction. The game has been praised for giving each weapon a unique purpose, thus making them useful in different scenarios.[20] For example, plasma weapons need time to cool if fired too rapidly, but cannot be reloaded and must be discarded upon depletion of battery. In contrast, conventional firearms cannot overheat, but require reloading and ammunition. Players may carry only two weapons at once; thus, a strategy is required when using and selecting firearms.[21]Halo departs from traditional FPS conventions by not forcing the player character to holster their firearm before deploying grenades or melee-range blunt instruments; instead, both attacks can be utilized while a gun is still equipped, supplanting or supplementing small-arms fire.[19] All weapons may be used to bludgeon enemies,[19] which allows the Master Chief to silently kill opponents without alerting other nearby enemies.[22] The Chief can also carry up to eight grenades at a time: four fragmentation and four plasma grenades each.[23] Like the game's other weapons, the two types of grenades differ; the fragmentation grenade bounces and detonates quickly,[24] whereas the plasma grenade adheres to targets before exploding, sometimes with blackly comic results.[25]